Gratitude 26

And now, a word about jays.  Not the baseball team, the Toronto Blue Jays, though I have seen blue jays in Toronto, but they were not of for bat, neither were they pitchers nor catchers but rather striking looking birds with blue, white and black plumage.  Where I live in Vancouver on the West Coast we have the closely related Steller`s jays, closely related, and often mistakenly called blue jays by the many who really don't any better.  See for yourself.

Blue jay







Stellers Jay (excuse the bad punctuation, Gentle Reader.  Microsoft has really messed up my computer keyboard)



I often see Stellers jays during my many neighbourhood walks and they are lovely in life as are the blue jays.  Because they are familiar and common birds here in Canada they are very easy to take for granted.  If I were from another country I would likely find them uncommonly beautiful and exotic, as I do the many Mexican species of jays, for which I am also very grateful.

Feast your eyes, Gentle Reader:



And here is a turquoise jay from Colombia









And the black-collared jay, also from Colombia

And how about the azure hooded jay from Central America

There are many other species, some very lovely and blue such as these.  In nature they are not the kindest birds and they will not think twice about robbing the nests of other birds to breakfast on their eggs or dine on their young.

Because they are so lovely to the eyes I give much thanks to God for the pleasure of their existence.